Delicious Lesson

Fifth-graders at Bayville Intermediate School constructed “bone burritos” as part of a unit of study on the human body. Various foods were used to replicate the long bone structure.

The students used tortillas to represent the periosteum, or outer layer, which they covered with Vienna Fingers in place of the compact bone, Twinkies as the spongy bone and strawberry jam as the bone marrow. Each of the ingredients was rolled up into the tortilla like a burrito and wrapped with string licorice to signify the blood vessels, which run through the bones and wrap around them.

“This was one delicious way to learn what is inside our bones,” explained Teaching Assistant Pat Valenza, who runs the school’s science lab. She added that the students are more likely to remember the facts about bone structure because they will equate it with a project they enjoyed.